BIRD NOTES 35 



WHEN BIRDS SLEEP 



At one period of my life, when engaged in the 

 postal service, my duties took me abroad about 

 two hours after midnight. I noticed that the first 

 diurnal birds to awaken were the House-Martins: 

 before daybreak they were twittering in their nests, 

 as if anxious to be out and doing. By three they 

 were taking the first near-at-home flights of the day. 

 The Sparrows were astir shortly after the hour had 

 struck, and by half-past three most of the others 

 had followed suit. The water and shore birds are 

 semi-nocturnal ; some, indeed, are awake and busy 

 all night. The gulls, depending for fresh supplies 

 chiefly on the flood-tide, or on its earliest recedence, 

 take their naps mostly at low water. On Breydon 

 occasionally they are babbling and noisy the night 

 through. Black-headed Gulls are often a-wing 

 feeding on the night flood, the phosphorescence of 

 the fishy flotsam attracting their attention. These 

 remarks apply to the summer months. In late 

 autumn, when the herring shoals are off this coast, 

 before daybreak continuous straggling flocks of large 

 gulls, mostly "Greys," i.e. the immature of the 

 Blackbacks and the Herring Gull, pass along the 



